Name Nicholas Wadham Organizations founded Wadham College, Oxford | Role 1531–1609 | |
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Died October 20, 1609, Merryfield, Ilton Education Corpus Christi College, Oxford | ||
Nicholas Wadham (/ˈwɒdəm/; 1531/1532 – 20 October, 1609), Esquire, of Merryfield, Ilton in Somerset and Edge, Branscombe in Devon, was a posthumous co-founder, with his widow Dorothy Petre, of Wadham College, Oxford, and Sheriff of Somerset in 1585.
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Origins
Wadham was probably born at Merryfield in the parish of Ilton, near Ilminster, Somerset. He was the only son of John Wadham (d.1578) of Merryfield, Ilton Somerset and of Edge, Branscombe Devon, by his wife Joan Tregarthin (d.1583), daughter and co-heiress of John Tregarthin of Cornwall and widow of John Kelloway of Cullompton, Devon. Wadham's paternal grandfather, Sir Nicholas Wadham, was a Member of Parliament and sheriff of various counties.
Career
A biography written before 1637 states that Wadham attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford as a commoner, but did not take a degree. He may have lodged with John Kennall, the civil lawyer, later canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford. Wadham was briefly at court, as the text relates: vitam aulicam aliquantisper ingressus est ("he entered the courtly life for a moderately long time"). A certain "Nicholas Wadham of Brimpton, Somerset", was admitted to the Inner Temple on 9 March 1553 on the pledge of Richard Baker, who was married to Catherine Tyrell, a stepdaughter of Sir William Petre (Wadham's father-in-law), principal secretary to King Henry VIII. Due to the Petre connection, it is likely that the record refers to the Nicholas Wadham who is the subject of this article.
Wadham was appointed to the commission of the peace and other minor commissions in Somerset, appearing as executor and overseer in the wills of other Somerset gentlemen. Two personal letters of his exist, one from Sir Amias Paulet, Ambassador to Paris, advising that Wadham was unlikely ‘to be envious of our French news’ and thanking him for his efforts in the leasing of Paulet's park. The other letter was to John Talbot of Grafton, who had married Dorothy's sister Katherine Petre, regarding Wadham's work in negotiating a lease. Wadham was known for his hospitality and he maintained a fine household at Merrifield.
Wadham and his wife were suspected of recusancy. In 1608 the privy council ordered a stay of proceedings against both Wadham and his wife on a charge of recusancy. John Carpenter, Rector of Branscombe, dedicated to him his literary work "Contemplations", for the Institution of Children in the Christian Religion (1601), noting his "gentle affability with all persons" and his generosity.
Marriage
On 3 September 1555 at St Botolph's, Aldersgate in the City of London, Nicholas Wadham married Dorothy Petre (1534/5-1618), the eldest daughter of Sir William Petre, principal secretary to King Henry VIII. The couple had no children. Wadham and his wife lived with his parents until his father's death in 1578, when his mother moved into her dower house at Edge, Branscombe, Devon.
Death and burial
On 20 October 1609, aged seventy-seven, Wadham died at Merrifield. In his will he left the huge sum of £500 for his funeral expenses and directed his body be buried "in myne ile at Ilminster where myne auncestors lye interred". He was duly buried in the Wadham chapel in the Church of St Mary, Ilminster on 21 November 1609; his monument survives in the north-east corner of the Chapel (north transept) of St Mary's. It consists of a 1689 Baroque monument erected by his subsequent heirs Sir Edward Wyndham, 2nd Baronet and Thomas Strangways on which was re-placed the Purbeck marble slab inset with late Gothic style post-Reformation monumental brasses from the original monument which had collapsed. The monument was again restored in 1899 by the architect Thomas Graham Jackson (1835-1924). Following his father's example, his will ordered a full heraldic funeral, with alms to be distributed throughout county. Statues survive of Nicholas Wadham and his wife Dorothy Petre at their foundation, Wadham College, Oxford, high on the external wall of one of the buildings. Thomas Moore described him as "an ancient schismatic", referring to his attendance at Church of England services, and described Wadham as "dying a Catholic".
Succession
At his death he owned almost 30 manors and other lands and tenements in the counties of Devon, Dorset and Somerset, including:
He died childless, and all his estates and other wealth had been expected to pass to the children of his three sisters:
Instead he determined to use much of his wealth to perpetuate his name and in 1606 he founded an almshouse for eight poor people at Ilton. Wadham had also been saving money to found a college at Oxford, yet his intentions had not been written down and his instructions on his death-bed were contradictory. Despite this, his wife Dorothy, adding in her own large paternal inheritance, attended to his wishes and founded Wadham College, Oxford. The descendants of his sisters nevertheless still received large inheritances from Nicholas Wadham, including the manor of Ilton (to Wyndham); the manor of Wadham, Knowstone, (to Wyndham and Strangways); Edge, Branscombe (to Wyndham), Silverton in Devon (to Wyndham), etc.